While the Covid-19 pandemic has certainly caused pain in many ways for our community, there are a few positive things that have resulted from this pandemic on a longer term scale for the real estate market.
Raising the marketing bar
Just about every single listing you see now offers professional photography, and maybe even a virtual tour or interactive photos. Our hope is that this is the ‘new norm’! Even when we aren’t in a pandemic, your time as a buyer is valuable, and we should be offering this level of viewing prior to you taking the time to come to the home for a physical showing.
Increasing cleanliness standards
I don’t know about you, but we have never gone through so much sanitizer, but frankly, why haven’t we?! When we show property, at a minimum, we’re touching lock boxes, door knobs and light switches. And that’s in EVERY. SINGLE. HOUSE. We enter a lot of houses. The Lysol wipes, shoe covers, and gloves might just be here to stay, in the long term, as our ‘new norm’.
Virtual closings
This pandemic has caused our local government to re-prioritize something that has been in discussion for quite a while now. In April, Missouri announced approval for audio-visual technology facilitating remote notarization. What does this mean? Virtual closings! While this is only a temporarily approval at this time, we see this as a big step in the direction of technological advancement for real estate transactions in the future.
Home upgrades
Everyone and their sister seems to be out doing housework with their extra time! Take a walk around your neighborhood, and I bet you’ll see someone cleaning out the garage, spray painting a little D.I.Y project or sprucing up their lawn and garden. Hello price appreciation and better neighbors 😉
More demand
If you’ve followed us for the last couple of years (or maybe even the last couple of days), you’ve heard us say that inventory is low. And my oh my, it just keeps getting lower! The pandemic seems to have more sellers staying put, but the buyers are still out there. Some basic supply and demand principles tell us that prices would then go up, and they sure are! It is not uncommon to have multiple offers on homes, and each sale seems to be setting new heights on the sale price. While this has been very frustrating for buyers (buyers: read this), it is a beautiful thing for sellers.
If you’ve been around for a while, you know we like to keep our perspective half full, and we think this time is worth just that! There are great things coming out of this hardship, and we WILL come out better because of it! In the meantime, stay well!